Thursday, July 04, 2024

Day 10 - Warsaw

don't try to change my mind
my mind is mine
Feelings - JGrrey

Day 10 was spent taking a day trip to Warsaw. Was it a good decision? I don't know, I guess. I just felt a bit weird being in a country and not seeing its capital city, though I myself didn't make an effort to go to Berlin in this trip. I chose the fastest train, departure time 08:07, arrival time 10:28. It's a direct train with no stop in between. The train was pretty full. I sat next to a man who was working on his computer throughout. He's corresponding both in English and Cyrillic. I was kinda curious what he does because he's also emailing to a company in China and it seemed chemical related. Okay, maybe it's not that long of a train ride, but I couldn't help it, I looked around. Arriving and exiting the train station in Warsaw, I was stunned by how unexpectedly cold it was. There's a disconnect in my brain between the bright cloudless blue sky and the cold; my brain was expecting heat but I was cold to the point that I was shivering a bit and I wondered if I would be alright. I could only just brave the cold and walk and hope I would get warm soon. Another thing that felt a bit weird for me upon exiting the train station and as I started to walk was that the city didn't feel crowded or busy, like there weren't many people or traffic around. It felt quiet.

The plan for the day changed the night before. I didn't plan to visit the Royal Castle in Warsaw because again I've seen many castles and palaces in this trip, but the night before, I found out that on Wednesdays it's free to enter the castle. I couldn't refuse that. So off I went. Took a tram to get to the old town. The nearest tram stop from the train station was Centrum and it's like this underground walkway that has many exits to the street level. Somehow I managed to find the correct exit for my tram on the first attempt. I was happy about that :D When I arrived at the stop for the old town, there's an announcement inside the tram that said something like please pay attention and be careful because we're exiting to oncoming traffic. Yep, it didn't make sense as I heard that, that I thought there's perhaps some translation issue, but then when I exited out of the tram, I found out it's so true. We're exiting in the middle of oncoming traffic. I guess the drivers there are used to this, so they slowed down to a halt, but it didn't stop me from being shockingly surprised. All was well though. Found a big building that I thought was the castle then I found out it wasn't, but then I found the castle correctly. Also managed to find where the entrance was when I saw a queue. The queue wasn't very long, but it wasn't moving particularly fast, but I stayed on it. The thing I like the most about the castle was that they have painting exhibitions. It's kinda nice to have this chance of looking at paintings because I didn't visit any art museum in this trip. This picture below is a small part of a painting titled Constitution of 3 May 1791 by Jan Matejko, who's apparently a famous Polish painter.

The rest of the castle is as castle does; you have the throne room, chamber, hall, bedroom, chandeliers, ornamental objects, etc. It wasn't super big, so it's not overwhelming.

For more pictures from the castle, you can go here. Below is the exterior of the castle by the way. Just in case you're interested to visit, it's the pink building. Do try to go on a Wednesday for free entrance.

After that I explored more of the old town. Saw some little kids on a field trip. So cute, they're wearing one of those bright safety vests. I think it's a thing they do there in Poland. There were definitely more people in the old town, a lot of visitors. I entered the Archcathedral Basilica of St. John the Baptist which I passed before reaching the old town market square.

My end point was the Warsaw Barbican which was their old city wall and gate. Then I decided to have lunch. Hadn't had anything Polish while there so I went to a restaurant that I googled and had Pierogi and non-alcoholic beer again. The non-alcoholic beer was again good, I'm like totally sold on this now. The pierogi was also good because I chose the safe option (safe for me), potato and cheese. I can't tell what's the difference between pierogi and gyoza. They look the same to me. I will never choose to eat gyoza though because I know they would have spring onion or onion in them, but potato and cheese pierogi, it's a big yes for me.

After lunch, I decided to leave old town and go to the Saxon garden. Got a bit lost on the way there. I'm not sure why, did I stop at the wrong stop? Maybe I didn't understand the stops listed on the route. I seemed to take the longer way to get there, so very likely I stopped at the wrong stop. Anyways, the garden is a big park and kinda nice to walk around. They have a monument, Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which had guards guarding them (see below).

I wanna talk about these 2 dogs. The first one was this little energetic dog who was running ahead of its owner and stopped and looked at me while I was taking its picture :D The other one didn't seem to have an owner which made me confused. It was walking on its own. I thought it was following its owner, but the guy just walked on without paying attention to it and making sure it was following him. Maybe he's really its owner and he knows it would find its way to him? I don't know. The dog looked pretty well to be a stray and it also looked well-behaved.

I didn't explore all of the garden because I didn't want to miss my train back. It would be disastrous if I did. So I quickly made my way back to the station. I noticed by the garden entrance (the one that I used), there's a really nice smell and I think it came from the flowers, but I don't know what flowers they were. Anyways, the last photo of Warsaw was of Palace of Culture and Science. For more pictures of Warsaw, it's here.

My train ended up delayed. By the platform of my train, there was this stall selling drink, but there's no staff, the one making it was a robotic arm. No one bought the drink though, so the robot arm was just moving randomly. It's a robot, so I suppose it didn't feel bored or sad there's no customer :D All and all I made it to Warsaw and back so that's high five all around. Was it worth making the trip there? This trip was definitely worth the effort more than the one I did to Kutna Hora. Though I wouldn't say that Warsaw was exceptional, I do think that perhaps I needed more time to explore it. I don't think I saw enough.

:) eKa @ 10:06:00 PM •